Black Out the Sun Tour

As the sun began to set on a perfect summer evening, Sight of Sound Magazine headed over to the Maingate Night Club in Allentown where the Sevendust show from early this year had been rescheduled for today. The venue just isn’t meant to hold concerts, especially one of this size but they did the best with what they had and the fans enjoyed every second of it and so did we. The night began with an upcoming band called Devour The Day, or as some of may know the new band of the former Egypt Central singer and guitarist.

For a new band it is always tough to get a crowd going because honestly you can’t expect them to know every song off your album and Devour the Day suffered from this a little bit to be honest. The crowd was bored, but that doesn’t mean it was a bad performance! In fact, Devour The Day delivered a pretty solid show and things turned around for them when they played their single “Good Man.”

Suddenly the crowd came alive but it was too late because this song would be the band’s last and just like that the crew was out tearing down the set to get ready for the next act of the night. Overall, as I said, a solid performance but it peaked too late and the crowd was left hanging in the end.

It has to be said that this venue is primarily a nightclub, I’m saying this because their lighting rigs are just sub-par when it comes to a concert but this didn’t prevent me from getting some decent shots of the show. When Otherwise took the stage following Devour The Day, their lighting tech literally pushed the club’s lights to their limits and I really appreciated him doing so. The real highlight of the night for me actually occurred during Otherwise’s set when a good friend of mine and Sight of Sound Magazine‘s took their stage for a special performance.

Matt Bishop, from The Rock Revival, joined the band on stage for a rocking performance of “Vegas Girl” and the crowd loved it! Otherwise are just a fun band and one of the most talented upcoming bands in the rock scene today, their debut album has had two chart topping singles on Sirius XM Radio actually. Lead singer, Adrian Patrick, has a little bit of crazy in him and the crowd loves to feed off his energy during the set. Check these guys out, you won’t be disappointed with them I promise.

At last the moment had come that fans had been literally waiting months for, the one and only Sevendust. Let me just start by saying that they were loud and I mean peel your face back loud! I almost feel bad for fans in the front row because they won’t be hearing correctly for the rest of the week but it was totally worth it to be there because they had the best spots in the house for a killer performance by Sevendust.

The band loves their fans, it is very obvious to see because each one of them took time while performing to interact with the fans whether it be holding their hands for a second or chucking endless amounts of guitar picks. Their setlist, though short, was a perfect blend of new material from “Black Out the Sun,” some classics like “Denial” and even some heavy hitters like “Angel’s Son.”

The band was in perfect form tonight, Lajon Witherspoons vocals were excellent and the rest of the band was spot on instrumentally as well. There was only one thing that held this performance back and it has been a recurring issue all night, the lighting. The band had their own lighting system which provided amazing amounts of backlight but with the in house system being so weak their lights often over powered the house lights which meant the band looked like silhouettes for the majority of the performance. All in all a minor complaint about what was a perfect evening for a metal show.

I give Sevendust a lot of credit making good on their promise that they would come back following their cancelled show earlier this year. Each member of that band loves their fans and the fans love them back, it is almost like a family and you don’t see that often anymore in the music industry. Sevendust proves once and for all that metal is alive and well in America. Be sure to check out our exclusive photo gallery from the evening below as well as our formal review of Sevendust below!